The Novus Platform

The Novus Platform, developed by SEI Novus, is a portfolio intelligence and analytics solution that aims to provide institutional investors with data-driven insights to support their investment decision-making process. According to the vendor, the Novus Platform is tailored for large institutional investors and money managers and is used by professionals in various industries, including investment professionals, analytics teams, operations personnel, committees & boards, asset owners, asset managers, endowments & foundations, sovereign wealth funds, and pension funds.

Key Features

Data Enrichment: According to the vendor, the Novus Platform seamlessly integrates with various data sources to validate, cleanse, and harmonize portfolio data. It also offers the ability to enrich data with relevant market or alternative data sets and user-defined tags for a customized view of the investment landscape.

Investment Insight Extraction: The Novus Platform allows users to analyze their portfolios in-depth by slicing and dicing data along dimensions of attribution, risk, and exposure. The platform provides the ability to aggregate and analyze portfolios, simulate scenarios, and test portfolio ideas. Users can analyze simulated portfolios as if they were their actual portfolios, according to the vendor.

Stakeholder Engagement: The Novus Platform offers customizable grids and charts to present data in a visually appealing manner. Users can share their work and collaborate on reports with their team. Brand compliant reports can be created to effectively communicate with stakeholders and convey the story of the portfolio, according to the vendor.

Manager Transparency: Users can extract and process manager updates and communications to generate exposure- or position-level reports. The platform allows for investigating aggregate exposures such as sector, country, and liquidity, and analyzing their drivers. Look-through analyses can be enabled to gain insights into underlying positions, according to the vendor.

Private Market Data Management: The Novus Platform provides tools for automating private market data processes, including Intelligent Document Processing for digitizing and processing PDFs. Portfolio management for private investments allows for review of multiples and IRRs, cash flow forecasting, liquidity analysis, and exposure management. Users can access rich information on portfolio companies, including valuations and meta data, according to the vendor.

Shadow Accounting: The Ledger tool within SEI Novus modernizes shadow accounting technology, enabling the reconciliation and rectification of contradictory or delayed information. Users can establish connectivity with custodians and managers to aggregate raw portfolio data and reconcile records. Accurate portfolio data allows for timely analyses and performance projections, according to the vendor.

Analytics and Attribution: The Novus Framework measures the value added by each degree of freedom used in the investment process. The platform powers attribution analysis along traditional industry methodologies, including Brinson and Alpha/Beta decomposition of returns. Risk metrics such as Value-at-Risk can be estimated, aggregated, and validated at the security and portfolio levels. Factor modeling and stress tests provide insights into factor sensitivity, exposure, and contribution, according to the vendor.

Visualization and Reporting: The Novus Platform offers flexible visualization options, allowing users to extract, aggregate, filter, and analyze data according to their preferences. Customizable charts and tables can be created to represent key insights unique to the portfolio. Reports can be automated, tailored to specific needs, and scheduled for automatic updates. Users can apply custom branding to the platform, including logos, color palettes, and style guidelines, according to the vendor.

Collaboration and Simulation: Users can set logic-based alerts to stay informed about portfolio changes. Collaboration features enable seamless teamwork within the Novus platform. What-if analysis allows users to evaluate the impact of different scenarios on their portfolio. Back-testing engines and simulation tools enable the creation and analysis of hypothetical portfolios, according to the vendor.